377 © 2011 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare Animal Welfare 2011, 20: 377-384 The Old School, Brewhouse Hill, Wheathampstead, ISSN 0962-7286 Hertfordshire AL4 8AN, UK Environmental enrichment for captive Eastern blue-tongue lizards (Tiliqua scincoides) CJC Phillips*†, Z Jiang†‡, AJ Hatton‡, A Tribe†‡, M Le Bouar†§, M Guerlin†§ and PJ Murray† † Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland, Gatton 4343, QLD, Australia ‡ School of Animal Studies, The University of Queensland, Australia § Ecole Nationale Veterinaire, Toulouse, France * Contact for correspondence and requests for reprints:
[email protected] Abstract Eastern blue-tongue lizards (Tiliqua scincoides) are kept in zoos and increasingly commonly as exotic pets, but little is known about improving their welfare by enrichment of their environment. Using nine animals kept individually in cages provided with a brick for basking and a pipe for hiding, we initially investigated enriching their environment with mealworms, either scattered on the floor or inserted into a foodball. The mealworms increased the time that the lizards spent feeding on both their ration and the mealworms and increased liveweight gain. Scattering the mealworms on the floor of their cages increased the time taken to eat them, compared with taking them from the foodball. Mealworms also reduced the time that the lizards spent hiding. Second, using eight individually housed lizards and replacing the pipe with a log which could be used both for basking and hiding, we investigated whether increasing the size of their enclosure and its temperature affected their behaviour, in a two-factor changeover design with two-week periods.